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Cybersix
was a series of Argentine comics created by Carlos Meglia and Carlos Trillo. The comic
first appeared in 1992 as part of the Italian version of the magazine Skorpioafter
the publisher came to them to produce a new strip for the book. It was published as a weekly series of
12-page stories beginning with Anno
XVI #22, later collected into special
editions. In 1994, it was spun off into its own 96-page comic that ran for
45 issues until it was cancelled in 1999. The whole series was published by Eura
Editoriale. The series was subsequently translated into Spanish and
released in Argentina by El Globo
Editor and Spain by Planeta DeAgostini,
and collections were translated into French by Editions Vents d’Ouest.

Cybersix vs. Von Reichter's creations.

The
series centered on the title character, Cybersix (or Cyber-6, Cathy Weseluck),
who was a genetically engineered human created by former Nazi scientist, Dr.
Von Reichter (Terry Klassen, also one of the show’s writers). The Cyber series
looked like ordinary humans, but possessed superhuman strength and agility.
However, when the Cyber series proved too resistant to his commands, he ordered
the entire line of 5000 to be destroyed. Only Six was spared, saved by one of
the African slaves Von Reichter kept. They lived as father and daughter until
Von Reichter had them hunted down and the slave was killed. Six made her way to
Meridana where she took the place of a young boy, Adrian Seidleman, that
recently died in a car wreck with the rest of his family. An earlier version of
the concept had Six disguising herself as a man to become a police officer
after her father had been killed.

Von Reichter and his Fixed Ideas.

Von Reichter, however, had not been idle.
From his lab in the Amazon he worked on his other creations: the Fixed Ideas,
which resembled large Frankenstein’s monster-like beings and performed his
grunt work; the Data series, which resembled animals; the Techno series, the
more human-like and more loyal upgrade to the Cyber series; and the Type
series, which were a further advancement over the Technos. At night, Cybersix
would hunt down these creations in the city not only to disrupt Von Reicther’s
dreams of world conquest, but to vampirically drain them of the life-giving
fluid called “Sustenance” she needed to survive. By day, she would continue to
live as Adrian, now a high school literature teacher and friend to science
teacher Lucas Amato (Michael Dobson), with whom a mutual infatuation developed.

Cybersix confronts Von Reicther amongst his creations.

Two things influenced the creation
of Cybersix. One was the case
of Mario and Elsa Rios; a wealthy couple who had some of
Elsa’s embryo’s frozen (which was a new innovation at the time) before both
died in a plane crash in 1983. The heirs to their estate wanted those embryos
destroyed so as to eliminate any chance that they could claim part of it, which
inspired Trillo to wonder what would have happened if the embryos instead fell
into the hands of a scientist who sought to create life.

Cybersix facing her Adrian persona.

The other inspiration came from Portugese
writer Fernando
Pessoa, who had created seventy-five distinct names that he wrote under. That
led to the theme of duality that ran throughout the Cybersix series as many of the characters had a completely
different side to them. In Six’s case, it was her time as male literature
teacher Adrian. For Lucas, not only was he a science teacher, but also a
journalist.

The comic became popular enough to
attract the attention of television producers. In Argentina, the comic was
adapted into a live-action television series in 1995. Produced by Patagonik TV Group and Television Federal, the show starred model Carolina Pelleritti in the title
role. Unfortunately, the series was poorly received and was quickly cancelled
after only eight episodes. Shortly after the cancellation, a friend of
Meglia’s, Alejandro Dolina, told
him of a Canadian producer looking for a cartoon project. The pair sent off
several scripts and a sample pilot Dolina crafted on his computer. A deal was
struck and the show was taken on by Network of Animation (NOA)
Productions.

Jose, a Hitler in the making.

A new pilot was created by TMS Entertainment in order to shop the
series to networks. The show was picked up by Teletoon in Canada and the full series
was put into production. TMS stayed on as the primary animation facility for
the show and reincorporated parts of their pilot into the show’s intro and scenes
within the episodes. Teiichi
Takiguchi served as the character designer and kept the look of the show
close to Meglia’s art style; from Six’s white-less eyes to the rectangular
patches representing hair. However, he did simplify their appearances a bit to
make them easier to animate.

A vial of Sustenance.

While the show largely followed the
main plotline of the comics, some changes had to be made to the source material
for consumption by western audiences. The level of violence had to be
considerably toned down. Meglia worked with the producers for several days to
come up with an alternative for Six’s feeding on Sustenance by biting on necks,
and came up with the idea that Von Reichter’s creations carried around vials of
the stuff on their person and dissipated after Cybersix defeated them. Von
Reichter’s Nazi affiliation was kept ambiguous, although it manifested itself
in the clothing and movements of his son and right-hand man, Jose (Alex Dodusk).
Jose’s origin was changed from being an age-retarded clone of Von Reichter, and
the sexual libido Von Reicther gave him to keep him too distracted from
revolting against him was removed. Lori (Janyse Jaud), the student in Adrian’s
class that was infatuated with him, was changed from a highly promiscuous thug
to be a smarter, computer-literate thug. Lucaswas no longer a journalist, and
his obsession with learning about Cybersix was curbed to make him appear as
less of a crackpot conspiracy theorist. The show also left more open for the
audience to interpret, whereas the comic explained everything; right down to
Cybersix’s outfit coming from one of Von Reichter’s creations posing as a
prostitute.

Cybersix and Data-7.

Cybersix
debuted on Teletoon on September 6, 1999. While casting the show, the
producers were uncertain whether to cast a male actor for the Adrian role or
not. After Cathy Weseluck auditioned for Six, Julian and Jose, they decided she
could pull off both and cast her in the lead role. Producer Koji Takeuchi served as one of
the series’ writers, along with Judy
Valyi, Barry Whittaker, Andrew D. Hammell, Jono Howard, Catherine Girczyc and Michael Van Lane. The series’ beginning
and ending themes were composed by series composer Robbi Finkel with lyrics by
Robert Olivier and vocals provided by jazz singer Coral Egan, who sang it in
the fist person. Finkel was hired by the producers after hearing his
composition for a showing of Cirque
du Soleil.

A second season of 13 episodes was
planned, but production ended after the first season when there were internal
disagreements between the production companies. The show was translated into
several languages and broadcast around the world, eventually finding its way to
the United States on FOX Kids.
Debuting on August 19, 2000, the show was even further toned down by the
network; particularly the intro, which was cut in half in order to remove most
of the instances of violence depicted. Even so, it drew
controversy over its content and characters due to its being shown so early
in the morning between two far more kid-friendly programs, Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue and Digimon: Digital Monsters. This mature tonality was the particular
reason producer Herve Bedard
wanted to make the show; because he believed that young adults would be the new
niche audience to target with animation. Unfortunately, said target audience
wasn’t as likely to be up as early and the show was pulled from FOX’s schedule after only 10 episodes aired.

Lucas reassures Cybersix he's never seen Dark Angel.

Although Cybersix the series ended on a cliffhanger, Cybersix the comic managed to bring its story to a conclusion before
its cancellation. Cybersix had a
second controversy during 2000, as Meglia and Trillo sued James Cameron and FOX over their
show Dark Angel. They
claimed that the show stole most of the plot and recognizable elements from the
comic. Unfortunately, the lawsuit was never resolved as they couldn’t afford to
pursue it. The lawsuit likely led to the heavy and unpopular changes made in Dark Angel’s second season, which
ultimately led to its cancellation.